Author: Kevin Woodley

Kevin Woodley is a rec-league target and former contributing editor of the Goalie News. He has written about the Vancouver Canucks and NHL for The Associated Press, USA Today, Sports Illustrated and The Hockey News for the last decade, and is currently at the Olympics for AP. Luongo got most of the work in practice today, with Brodeur and Fleury (who saw the least amount of action) sharing a net. Shortly after these interviews coach Mike Babcock announced that Luongo would start game one vs. Norway and then turn to Brodeur against Switzerland. One interesting Olympic equipment note for goalies — IIHF rules are up to date as far as measurements, such as the 11″ wide pads, but not all the recent NHL changes (no calf wedges, smaller knee pads, no inner belts on pants, etc.) but all the goalies I talked to today (Brodeur, Luongo, Nabokov and Bryzgalov) were sticking with NHL regulation stuff. Roberto Luongo inGoal: Have you become caught up in the Olympics at all yet? Luongo: “It’s exciting, we’ve been waiting for this a long time, not only myself and my teammates but everybody in the city, so it’s fun, it’s good to be here and we’re going to enjoy it for sure. It was kind of disappointing not to be here for opening ceremonies, but I tried to watch as much as I could,...

The National Hockey League goaltenders will be smaller for the 2009-10 season, but not nearly as many, and not by nearly as much, as the league hoped, planned and fought hard for. While the concept of making equipment proportional to the physical size of each goalie – an ideal approved by both sides two summers ago – appears to be moving forward with sizing charts for pants and upper body protection this season, the Players’ Association delayed the implementation of a similar sizing plan for goaltender leg pads by a year. The changes, approved under the principle of proportionality by the Board of Governors and Competition Committee two summers ago, would have affected as much as 60 per cent of the league, opening the five-hole on a long list of goalies that includes both of last year’s Stanley Cup finalists, Marc-Andre Fleury and Chris Osgood. They were the biggest part of the NHL’s two-year plan to shrink its stoppers, and the most significant since the width of pads was reduced from 12 to 11 inches coming out of the lockout. “It was supposed to be a discussion between us and the NHLPA about the measurements and how to use them, but they refused to co-operate and then they were like `No. Sorry. It’s too late. We don’t like it.'” said Kay Whitmore, a former NHL goaltender now charged with...

There’s little question what sets Boston goaltender Tim Thomas apart from his puck-stopping peers is his intense compete level and metal toughness. Teammate Patrice Bergeron even labeled his goalie’s style the “battle-fly,” an aggressive, outside-the-blue, take-no-prisoners approach that, in the words of Thomas himself stems from a combination of being 5-foot-11 – and therefore unable to rely solely on size and blocking – and never having anything given to him. That includes being a third string walk-on in junior, and accepting his career would end in Finland without a real shot at the NHL before reluctantly taking a final...

Nashville puck-stopping prospect Mark Dekanich is poised to become the next in a long list of really good to great goaltenders produced by the Predators. Drafted in the fifth round, 146th overall, after winning the Ken Dryden award as the top goaltender in the ECAC during his sophomore season at Colgate University, the North Vancouver native completed four seasons of NCAA hockey before moving up to the American Hockey League in 2008-09 and quickly ripping off a .930 save percentage in 30 games as a first-year pro. After a slight statistical dip – and two games in the ECHL – last season, the 24-year-old is back at the top of the league this season with a .931 save percentage and 2.02 goals-against average, pulling the Milwaukee Admirals up near the top with him. The 6-foot-2 stopper has already surpassed higher draft picks Jeremy Smith and Chet Pickard on the Predators depth chart, and if not for an impressive early showing by 6-foot-6 Swede Anders “The Giant” Lindback would likely be backing up Vezina Trophy candidate Pekka Rinne in the NHL already. Instead he’s settled for a couple of call ups to sit on the bench, and one brief relief appearance that will count as his NHL debut. Talk to most observers, however, and it it probably won’t be long before Dekanich is there full time. In the meantime Dekanich...

As most InGoal Magazine readers already know, Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Jonas Gustavsson underwent a heart ablation late last week, a minor operation to steady an irregular heart rhythm that was discovered when his heart began racing during pre-training camp workouts before his last season, his first in the NHL. It’s the third time Gustavsson has needed the heart procedure, which involves guiding, via x-ray, a thin catheter tube to the heart muscle and using bursts of radio-frequency energy to destroy small areas of tissue that are causing the abnormal electrical signals that set his heart racing in the first place. Amazingly, it should only keep him off the ice for a week. Unfortunately, it kept him from an American Hockey League road trip with the Toronto Marlies, and away from a scheduled chat with InGoal readers. The good news is InGoal had an earlier opportunity to sit down with the Swedish stopper during a recent visit with the Maple Leafs, and while it doesn’t allow us to pose the many excellent questions from subscribers to our FREE weekly newsletter as planned, it does provide a great deal of insight into the massive changes he is making in his game, and perhaps explain why it hasn’t always been a smooth transition from dominating in his native Elite League to playing in the National Hockey League. For the most part...

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Come into the Florida Panthers locker room with us as James Reimer goes over the details of the new @daveart mask, featuring more Panther and a little less Optimus Prime, that he might wear for first time tonight against the Vancouver Canucks. Full video featuring Reimer is up at InGoalMag.com (link in bio)